Amazon Prime Day Deals That Aren’t Worth It

The Amazon Prime Day promise

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Amazon Prime Day is like Black Friday in July for Amazon products, but not every item on its site is a deal. What’s not worth buying, generally? Products that will see lower prices as we get closer to fall, such as clothing and back-to-school supplies. As we move into September, retailers will try to unload their summer inventory to make way for fall items, so that’s when we tend to see the lowest prices—an impressive 76 percent of deals are better in the fall, according to Phil Dengler, of BestBlackFriday.com. “Prime Day is Amazon’s opportunity to clear its virtual shelves,” explains Alexander Lowry, a professor of finance at Gordon University. “That means you can expect to see deals on everything related to cheap accessories and products—especially savings on Amazon’s own brand of items.” Favorite Amazon in-house products include its Elements Vitamins, Elements Baby Wipes, and Essentials Clothing.

Track your favorites

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The best strategy for shopping on Amazon Prime Day is to track the items you want to buy, and as soon as they go on sale, buy them, because many of the popular items will be in limited quantities and will sell out quickly, says Kimberly Palmer of NerdWallet. And if the Instant Pot, Epson Small Business Printer, or American Tourister luggage you have your eye on doesn’t go on sale, don’t click “buy.” Palmer urges consumers to wait for lower price points in late August and early September. These are the Amazon Prime Day deals for back to school.

Avoid certain sales

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Watch out: The experts at BestBlackFriday.com caution that some Black Friday deals leave Amazon Prime Day in the dust. For example, the Amazon Prime Day price of a 40-inch Smart TV is $194.99, still $15 more than the average TV sold on Black Friday. Likewise, furniture, mattresses, and rugs, while all up to 30 percent off, are expected to cost around 10 percent more than last year’s Black Friday buys. Find out the weirdest things you can buy on Amazon.

Bookmark these sites

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If you’re not sure whether the item you have your eye on will be at its lowest price on Prime Day, there are apps that will track the price. Websites like CamelCamelCamel.com can help you monitor when the price dips and even look back at historical prices for perspective. It also pays to look at the price of items at retailers other than Amazon on Prime Day itself, because many stores—including Target—will be dropping prices to compete. You can use a browser add-on like Honey to make sure you are getting the lowest price possible. “You’ll also want to put Fakespot.com in your bookmarks,” adds Lowry. “This site can help determine whether the Amazon user reviews for a given product are legit or fake.” Make sure you know these 15 Amazon hacks to save money while shopping.

Make an early decision on Prime Membership

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You’ll need to be a Prime member to take advantage of the discounts on Amazon Prime Day. Joining Prime can be a good or bad decision: It depends on your shopping habits, says Palmer. If you don’t yet have an Amazon Prime account, then you can sign up for the free trial to take advantage of Prime Day and the free two-day shipping and try the other benefits that come with Prime, such as Prime Video, Music, and Photo Storage. Depending on your shopping habits and whether you will benefit from the free shipping throughout the year, you may decide that paying for the membership for the year, which costs about $120, could work to your advantage. If not, you can cancel your free trial before the 30 days are up. Here are the other Amazon Prime benefits you might not know about.

Disclosure: This post is brought to you by Reader’s Digest editors, who aim to highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of revenue from our partners, such as Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We welcome your feedback. Have something you think we should know about? Email us at [email protected]

Rachel Jacoby Zoldan is a beauty, health and lifestyle writer based in New York City. Her work has also appeared Refinery29, Men's Journal, Redbook, SELF, InStyle, HGTV Magazine and the Huffington Post. When she's not writing or editing, she's probably running, taking a yoga class or on a Spin bike somewhere. Thinking about really great leggings. (Also, maybe, the couch, too.)